











































LIFE BEYOND DEATH 


THE UNITY OF LIFE IN THE 
SEEN AND UNSEEN WORLDS 


BY 

JAMES PHILLIPS HOYT, D.D. 

Pastor Emeritus of the United Church of Christ 
(Congregational), St. Petersburg , 
Florida 


REVISED AND ENLARGED EDITION 



THE PILGRIM PRESS 

CHICAGO 


BOSTON 




"BT 9 04 
. H & 


COPTBIQHT 1915 , 1917 
Br JAMES PHILLIPS HOYT 


All rights reserved 


“The time may not be far off when to lose a 
friend by death will be hardly more than to 
have him cross the ocean; when our own 
passing will be merely the happy setting 
sail for a new country 

—The Atlantic Monthly. 


THE PILGRIM PRESS 
BOSTON 

©CI.A4815S8 

FEB -2 jyid 

AKV . ft 





T O THE MEMORY OF WIFE AND 
CHILDREN LIVING IN THE 
OTHER WORLD, AND TO THE 
WIFE AND CHILDREN LIVING IN 
THIS WORLD, AND TO THOUSANDS 
OF FRIENDS IN BOTH WORLDS, 
THIS BOOK IS AFFECTIONATELY 
DEDICATED. 



FOREWORD 


The subject of this book is of supreme interest 
to all, for all have friends in the Eternal World; 
every one expects to go there; and all know that 
the event called “ death ” awaits them. 

Such has been the interest in the subject 
wherever the addresses have been delivered, — 
at Chautauqua and elsewhere, — and so many 
have been the requests for their publication that 
they are now put in a printed form. 

Having said farewell to children, many near 
relatives, hundreds of friends and parishioners, 
and thousands of acquaintances, including most 
of his college classmates, the author has tried 
to find comfort in the Christian hope and faith 
as generally received, and not in vain; but, not 
being satisfied with this or the beautiful thought, 
“ Not lost but gone before,” he has asked for 
and received, as he believes, more light and now 
desires to comfort others with the comfort 
wherewith he has been comforted of God; hence 
these addresses and their publication. 

In this revised and enlarged edition are em¬ 
bodied some suggestions and the answers to 
some questions received in a large correspondence 
since the publication of the first edition entitled, 
“ Death — A Birth.” 


St. Petersburg, Fla . 


J. P. H. 





CONTENTS 

nai 

I Earth and Heaven ... 3 
II Hades and Heaven ... 35 
III Conclusion. 47 




PART I 


EARTH AND HEAVEN 


PART I 

EARTH AND HEAVEN 
Behold , 1 show you a new heaven and a new earth. 

With his finger on his failing pulse, Washing¬ 
ton’s last words were, “ I am going; it is well.” 
Going where? And why was it well with him? 
Cannot we say of him and of all who were 
prepared to die that they have been born from 
earth into heaven, and that “It is well with 
them ”? 

Christ said: “ I am no more in the world, 
but these are in the world ” l ; and yet at another 
time, he said: “ Lo, I am with you alway, even 
unto the end of the world.” 2 If Christ was not 
in the natural world when He said, “ I am no 
more in the world,” He must have been in the 
spiritual world, or rather in both worlds, where 
He has ever been and is to be “ always,” as He 
said. 

There are, then, two worlds which are really 
one, for they are united by Christ’s presence in 
both, and also (as we hope to show) by the 

1 John 17:11 
* Matthew 28: 20 


4 


LIFE BEYOND DEATH 


presence of those who, though absent from the 
body, are present with the Lord, and so with us, 
in one two-fold world. Christ and those with 
Him must be somewhere together and in the 
same world. 

But going from one world to the other is not 
exchanging worlds; it is rather discovering and 
adding an unknown part of the same world, 
as Columbus added the “ New World ” to the 
old. Millions have made this discovery, and 
we are soon to make it in “ life’s most beautiful 
adventure” which we call death, but which is 
really a birth and resurrection of the soul from 
the body into endless life lived in a world com¬ 
posed of both worlds. 

Is it not absurd to say that those who are not 
in this world are nowhere — in no world ? Let 
us rather say they are now here — in our world 
and theirs — wherever God sends them and 
permits them to be. Orthodox Christians of 
any church and of no church can be spiritual 
without becoming or being “Spiritualists”: 
we can all believe that “God is a Spirit ” and 
“ the Father of spirits ” — spirits who continue 
to live and to manifest their continued existence 
and presence after the body dies, without 
adopting or endorsing what is contrary to Scrip¬ 
ture or reason. 

We often speak of living in this world and of 


EARTH AND HEAVEN 


5 


going to the other world at death. What do we 
mean? What is the truth? Hundreds of our 
Christian friends have vanished from earth; 
where are they? They are no more in this world, 
you say; where are they? I do not now ask, 
where are the impenitent sinners and the un¬ 
godly who have gone into eternity — that is 
another question to be discussed later — but, 
where are the beloved of our homes and churches 
who, absent from the body, are present with the 
Lord; or, to broaden the question, where are 
all the God-fearing people and children of the 
Kingdom of Heaven, from the creation till now, 
who have disappeared from earth? 

I propose to show that they live in the 
one two-fold world of which Christ speaks and 
that, although separated from us by invisible 
barriers, they really live in the same world as 
ourselves. I shall consider the real unity of the 
two worlds we call earth and heaven — the 
world where we are, and the world where we are 
going, where our departed friends and kindred 
and the redeemed of all ages await us. I shall 
ask with the poet: 

“ Eternity, Death’s darkness and the Past, 

What have you done with all you’ve made your prey? 
Answer us! Will you render back at last 
What you have snatched away? ” 


6 


LIFE BEYOND DEATH 


Listen to the answer which God gives me to 
give to you. We call these two worlds the seen 
and unseen, the natural and the spiritual. They 
are but two parts of one universe. Like the 
disciples, we are now in the seen and natural; 
like Christ, we are some time to be in the spiri¬ 
tual, and, like Him, may dwell there now in 
spirit. 

Christ dwelt in and saw both worlds. While 
incarnate, His body was like ours; He saw with 
the natural vision what we see — sun, earth, 
and all material objects. But the other world was 
also always open to His vision and He beheld its 
mysteries and realities. When He gave up the 
spirit on the cross, He was no more in this 
world, as He had been, but was again in the 
spiritual world, which is, however, so blended 
and united with the natural, as spirit is with 
body, that the two are one. 

We may be in both worlds and not realize it. 
Christ was in both and saw both; the disciples 
were in both and saw only one. That we shall 
see both when we are, apparently, no more in 
this world, is my belief. The fact that our 
friends who have disappeared from earth are 
seen no more by us does not prove that they see 
us no more. Christ disappeared at death, but 
He was still near and with His disciples. He re¬ 
appeared at the resurrection and, in the upper 


EARTH AND HEAVEN 


7 


room, in Galilee and elsewhere, was seen of 
men. He disappeared at the ascension and 
reappeared to Paul and John, and is always with 
His disciples now, spiritually: “ Lo, I am with 
you alway,” He said; and cannot a Christian 
who has gone into the spiritual world say to 
surviving friends, “ Lo, I am with you some¬ 
times ”f 

Among the last words of one dear to me were 
these: “ I am not afraid to die. I am a Chris¬ 
tian by profession and faulty practice. I be¬ 
lieve God is preparing me for a heritage far 
richer in opportunity than I have had here. 
I also believe that bodily death does not sever 
my spirit completely from my loved ones and 
the interests of earth. I shall be happier and 
better there. I have learned that the greatest 
things to strive for are not of this world. We 
shall be supremely happy some time, and as we 
toil and struggle through our daily troubles 
we also get some sense of that peace and joy 
that awaits those who strive mightily for the 
right. I have lately come to believe that after 
death we are just as closely in touch with this 
world as before. We shall see what is going on, 
and in greater wisdom we shall still have our 
part in shaping the world to the fulfilment of 
God’s plan. I believe that then the troubles 
and sorrows of this life will reveal their purpose 


8 LIFE BEYOND DEATH 

and we shall join in hallelujahs at the wonder of 
it all.” 

Such was the belief and testimony of a young 
man who recently lived on earth and is now in 
heaven. I believe that he and heaven are not so 
far away that we cannot commune together. 
I believe in the communion of and with the 
saints — the spirits of the “ just made perfect.” 

The Christian at death withdraws into the 
spiritual world and, so far as his bodily presence 
is concerned, is no more here; but as surely as 
spirit lives, so surely does the Christian live in 
a spiritual form in the other world, visible there, 
though unseen here; and each Christian in 
heaven can say to his earthly friends: “1 
am no more in your world in bodily form, 
but you are to be — yes, are now — in my 
world.” 

If I can make this plain and reveal something 
of the nature of this unseen world where Christ 
and our departed friends are, and show how 
comforting and helpful this Scriptural truth is, 
without adopting the vagaries and crude notions 
of a dangerous spiritualism and of those who 
have stolen and perverted a precious revelation 
of Christianity, I shall rejoice. Cannot we 
believe that a soul rising from the body at death 
is clothed with a spiritual body in a spiritual 
world as easily and naturally as a germ of wheat 


EARTH AND HEAVEN 


9 


rising from seed and clod is clothed with a new 
form in God’s air and sunshine in the material 
world? Is not this the gospel of the Resurrec¬ 
tion according to Paul and Christ? Is not this 
what Paul meant when he said, “Not unclothed 
but clothed upon ”? 

John Bunyan, when asked what the other 
world was and where it was, said: “ Live a 
good life now, and here, and you will soon find 
it.” But this is giving a stone for bread to a 
hungry soul. To such a question I would say, 
The other world is as real as this, and as near as 
this, is composed of and contains all that con¬ 
stitutes a world, only its contents are not ma¬ 
terial but spiritual. These spiritual bodies and 
objects are real — so real that we are exhorted 
to set our affections on the things and persons 
above, that is, on Christ and our friends who 
are with Him. Affection implies recognition. 
I believe that we shall know them when we see 
them there. When “ gathered to our fathers,” 
we shall recognize our ancestors. There will be 
family re-unions in our “ Father’s House.” 
Who can doubt it? And are not such gatherings 
possible here? Christ said, “ Where two or 
three are gathered together, there am I.” He 
was with the disciples in the upper room before 
he revealed himself. So may He and our loved 
ones with Him be with us in our gatherings, un- 


10 LIFE BEYOND DEATH 

revealed except as we realize their spiritual 
presence. 

“ Oft may the spirits of the dead descend 
To watch the silent slumbers of a friend: 

To hail the spot where first their friendship grew 
And heaven and nature opened to their view! 

There may these gentle guests delight to dwell, 

And bless the home they loved in life so well! ” 

St. John, being in the spirit on the Lord’s Day, 
saw this spiritual world all about him and tried 
to make it real to us in the Book of Revelation; 
but we see it not for we do not now have his 
spiritual vision. Yet some time we shall see all 
that John saw. Why, then, fear to pass through 
and out of these shadows of earth to the realities 
of heaven? Death, to the Christian, is only a 
gateway between these two worlds; this life is 
a suburb of heaven. 

“ There is no death; what seems so is transition: 

This life of mortal breath 

Is but a suburb of the life elysian, 

Whose portal we call death.” 

“ There is a land immortal, 

The beautiful of lands; 

Beside its ancient portal 
A silent sentry stands: 

He only can undo it 
And open wide the door — 

And mortals who pass thro’ it 
Are mortal nevermore.” 


EARTH AND HEAVEN 


11 


Passing through the gate, however, does not 
annihilate for us the earth side. Both sides — 
both worlds — may be visible to immortals. 
We may pass and re-pass from one to the other, 
by God’s permission, after we go through the 
gate. 

But the question is: Cannot we who are yet 
this side of the gate obtain a glimpse of what is 
beyond it? True, we have a hope which, as 
Paul says, entereth in beyond the veil; but why 
not also have a faith that enters in beyond the 
gate? To some who have read “ Intra Mur os ” 
and “ Gates Ajar,” and have the gift of faith 
and of spiritual discernment, this gate is not 
only “ ajar,” but wide open, and the walls are 
enlarged so as to encircle heaven and earth. 

Is it not possible for the most unimaginative 
Christian to spiritualize material objects so as 
to see the heavenly side? Let us try to do this 
by some illustrations: 

You say, “ Heaven is my home.” You be¬ 
lieve the words, “ In my Father’s house are 
many mansions (or rooms); I go to prepare a 
place for you.” Now, do you think of this 
place, house, or home which Christ and Chris¬ 
tians speak of as real or ideal? “ Real,” you 
say. Then you have an idea of the other world 
and can make the idea real rather than ideal, 
just as real as your own earthly and material 


12 


LIFE BEYOND DEATH 


house; for you can this moment see that ma¬ 
terial house as a mental picture and say, “ That 
house which I now see with my mind’s eye is 
my home ”; and this ideal, mental house is as 
real to you as the material; the two are one to 
you. 

In the same way a Christian can say, “ Heaven 
is my home; I have there a building not made 
with hands, eternal in the heavens — a place 
I am as sure of entering at death as I am sure of 
soon going to my earthly and material home.” 
Your faith, therefore, is strong enough to grasp 
this truth and to believe in the two worlds 
united like two concentric circles with the same 
center but with different circumferences. 

Yes, the other world Christ saw is as real 
as God and the soul; more real in fact than the 
temporary objects in this world which soon 
perish, for the true substance is beyond. Have 
you not this faith which is “ the substance of 
things hoped for, the evidence of things not 
seen ”? 

As Christ and His disciples lived in two dif¬ 
ferent worlds, and yet the same, so do we and 
our departed friends who have gone to be with 
Christ. We live in the same material world as 
Christ’s disciples who lived almost two thousand 
years ago, and yet how different, how changed; 
so they now live in a world we have not yet 


EARTH AND HEAVEN 


13 


discovered and cannot understand, any more 
than they in the first century could see and 
understand our twentieth century world. 

If I have made my meaning plain, you will 
understand me when I tell you that in the 
spiritual world, although there will be differences 
and changes, you will feel at home, because it 
will be a world like this, only infinitely superior 
and adapted to life in spiritual bodies. You 
will find there homes and friends, spiritual 
substances and objects, which will be recognized 
as we now recognize persons and objects. It 
will be a genuine world, as Christ said. You 
cannot imagine a world or a place with nothing 
in it and nothing to it. Christ would not have 
so deceived us. Oh, to see what Christ saw 
when He said, “ I am no more in this world! ” 
Oh, to know what is around us in space which 
the eye cannot see, nor the ear hear, nor the 
mind imagine! Think of what will be revealed 
when Christ fulfills His gracious, precious 
promise, “ I will come and receive you to myself 
that where I am ye may be also.” Even Paul 
could not describe the revelations for he testified 
that “ eye hath not seen nor ear heard ” nor 
mind imagined them. 

The two worlds, however, are not apart; 
both worlds are one, the spiritual blending and 
mingling with the material. Think of what you 


14 


LIFE BEYOND DEATH 


see in this life and this world by the aid of this 
half-inch lens we call the pupil of the eye. What 
visions of beauty and glory come to you! Then 
think of what you will see in the spiritual world 
when the soul goes out from behind that aid 
to vision and, in its spiritual discernment, is all 
eye. Oh, what revelations! Now we see as 
in a glass darkly, but then we shall see with 
open vision — see, hear, and know all that a 
spirit can. The spirit of man will then inherit 
the kingdom of heaven and know that there is 
an infinity of objects not now seen by the 
natural eye. 

Do you not believe that, after your resurrec¬ 
tion from the body and your ascension into 
heaven at death, you will be with Christ; 
that when absent from the body you will be 
present with the Lord, and also present with all 
his disciples and your Christian friends who are 
with Him; and that nothing but the body with 
its limitations keeps you out of the spiritual 
world now? I believe that this unseen world, 
like God Himself, is here and everywhere; that 
we are in it now and that it is within us, for Christ 
said, “ The kingdom of heaven is within you ”; 
that we are not only encompassed by a great 
cloud of witnesses, but by a spiritual world 
where these witnesses dwell. And why Chris¬ 
tians and the Christian Church should be so 


EARTH AND HEAVEN 


15 


blind to this truth, when Christ and God’s 
word shed so much light on it, is a mystery. 
Christ’s words are not so mysterious as the 
doubts of Christians as to the reality of heaven 
and the presence of the spiritual world all 
around and within us. 

I presume many yet think of heaven as “up 
yonder but if you were in China, it would be, 
according to this view, “ down there,” or in 
just the opposite direction. Some may think of 
it as beyond the stars or beyond space — mil¬ 
lions of miles away from earth; and so it is. 
It is there, here, everywhere, with a capital 
called “ Holy City.” Where is it not? Heaven 
is where God is; and both God and heaven are 
omnipresent. Out of that heaven came the 
angels at Bethlehem and all who ever appeared 
unto mortals; into that heaven went Paul and 
John, who saw things unutterable; and into it 
go those who die only to live again. Out of it 
came and into it went Moses and Elijah at the 
transfiguration. Out of it come and into it go 
our beloved, and into it we are soon to go, and 
then — are to come and go as God directs. 

If I go behind a curtain and am unseen, am 
I not still in this world? God has wisely placed 
a curtain between us and the spiritual world and 
those who are there; but it is there and they are 
there; in two worlds and yet the same. 


16 


LIFE BEYOND DEATH 


But your faith may be weak. You may say, 
“ Why can we not see this other world and its 
inhabitants now? ” I reply, Because our spiri¬ 
tual senses, which will be useful in a spiritual 
body, are now closed; the material body has 
only five senses, but the spiritual body may have 
many senses, useless here, but useful and used 
there. If we had them all here — or rather 
could use them all here — we should be unfitted 
for life in this world. Some illustrations will 
make this plain. When you close one sense, 
the sense of sight, in the day-time, by dropping 
the eye-lids, all is dark; and yet you are in a 
world of light. You are in a dark world and a 
light world, two worlds at the same time, as 
indeed Helen Keller and all the blind are all the 
time. You need not go to the world of light 
for you are in it; a thousand objects are around 
you and, possibly, a thousand persons, and yet 
you see them not, except by faith. Now open 
your eyes and, lo! another world; all is revealed 
that was hidden before. We then understand 
that the inner self, the spirit or spiritual being in 
the body, has its eye-lid, the material body, so 
drawn over it that when death opens and re¬ 
moves it, the soul sees God and another world 
and all its inhabitants and objects. The disem¬ 
bodied soul needs no material eye to see spiritual 
objects and persons, to see what we now cannot see. 


EARTH AND HEAVEN 


17 


Or again, imagine yourself asleep. You are 
in a material world and yet know it not. You 
are as unconscious of sun and stars, home and 
friends, and all objects in this world as if they 
did not exist. But you awake and, at once, 
without stirring, you are conscious of them all. 
Cannot you also believe you may now be as 
those who are sleeping, unconscious of what you 
will see when you awake in the morning of the 
eternal day, and that, too, without any change of 
place? You simply put off this robe of flesh, 
for flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of 
heaven; you leave the body and are in the 
spiritual world. 

We are now in the atmosphere, and it is in us. 
We live, move, and have our being in it and yet 
see it not. So we now live in an unseen spiritual 
atmosphere, or rather in an unseen spiritual 
ether or ethereal world, and see it not. 

Sight is not necessary to faith; to prove this 
look at some friend. You say you see him; 
but you do not really see him . You see the body 
only, and you do not really see that, but only 
an image of it, printed on the retina of the eye. 
You never will, and never can, in this world, see 
that friend, the real person causing that image 
and dwelling in the body. And certainly the 
spiritual being, who moves the body and acts 
upon and through it, is invisible to you. But in 


18 


LIFE BEYOND DEATH 


the other world spirit can and will see spirit. 
We then shall know even as we also are known. 
So, when you look out on this material world, 
you see only the body of it. You do not see the 
soul of it — I mean the spiritual world which 
permeates and moves it and acts upon it and 
through it. But you will see it at death: 
when you use the eye no more in this world, you 
will see the spiritual world, where Christ dwells, 
and its inhabitants; and they will see you — 
not your body, but you. You will then under¬ 
stand not only that the two worlds were so 
near as to be one, but also understand how spirit 
and spiritual forces proceeding from God, who is 
a Spirit, operate upon and energize this material 
world, producing all life, spiritual, animal, and 
vegetable, and co-working spirit with matter. 

Yes, we are now in the spiritual world, even 
while we are in this material world; and in a 
spiritual body, even while we are in this ma¬ 
terial body. We live, move, and have our being 
in both and in God, for God, the eternal, un¬ 
created personal Spirit is in both worlds, in 
all and over all, blessed forever. God who 
made all things in heaven and earth is in all 
things in both worlds and when we with our 
spiritual bodies rise out of our material bodies at 
death, we shall see both worlds and realize their 
unity and coordination. 


EARTH AND HEAVEN 


19 


The block of rough-hewn marble from the 
quarry could no more become a beautiful statue 
without the shaping hand of man than could 
these material forms around us have become what 
they are without a personal spirit and a spiritual 
world and spiritual forms to mould them. 

This world is the effect of a cause — God; 
and should the effect — this world — be de¬ 
stroyed, the cause, God, and the spiritual world 
would still exist, as we shall exist when the body 
perishes. Existence of itself implies continuity, 
identity, memory, affection, and recognition of 
friends. You will be you and I shall be I as long 
as God is God. 

Let this truth be with you for your comfort 
and help; may it bring you near to Him who 
said, “ Where I am ye shall be also; because 
I live, ye shall live also”; and make you 
willing to be absent from the body and present 
with the Lord and all who are with Him in that 
world where He is and they are. 

The body is to the soul what the glove is to 
the hand or the envelope is to the letter: it 
covers, encloses, and fits it. As the hand can 
be withdrawn out of the glove and the letter be 
taken from the envelope and be separate, so 
can the soul at death withdraw from the body 
and have a separate existence in a spiritual 
form. In the Apostles’ Creed, I would say: 


20 


LIFE BEYOND DEATH 


“ I believe in the resurrection from the body.” 
I do not believe in the resurrection of the dead, 
material body. It is the living spirit in a spiritual 
form that rises and lives. 

Lazarus and others returned to the body and 
lived in it again until they died again. Moses 
and Elias reappeared in human form and so did 
Christ for forty days until his body was spiri¬ 
tualized and changed into the ascension body. 
But these miracles and seeming exceptions to 
the rule do not disprove the rule which is, that 
lifeless bodies, whether embalmed, cremated, or 
returned to dust, are never again raised; those 
who were in them have risen from them — have 
come as from their graves, as Christ said, and 
live in spiritual forms. 

All spirit, and hence every spirit, is immortal; 
and I can no more believe in the extinction or 
annihilation of a human spirit than of the Divine 
Spirit, God. The body returns to earth, but 
the spirit returns to God, the “ Father of 
spirits.” What we call death is really resur¬ 
rection and ascension. 

I cannot believe — can you? — that nothing 
exists in the space around us except what we 
can see with this minute organ of vision, the eye. 
Millions of spiritual beings and objects a ma¬ 
terial eye cannot discern may fill the immensity 
of space, unseen like the air, but as real as it. 


EARTH AND HEAVEN 


21 


Certainly God, who is Spirit, is an unseen oc¬ 
cupant of this two-fold world, for in Him we 
live and move and have being. If one Spirit, 
God, is an inhabitant of space, why may not the 
spirits made in His image be there also? The 
fact that they have spiritual forms does not 
impair our faith in their existence and presence. 

We say, “ Thou God seest me.” We pray to 
“ Our Father who art in heaven.” Are that 
heaven and that God and Father in heaven far 
away or near by? I believe both are as near to 
us as our thoughts and souls. We can think, 
as well as say, a prayer. God hears both the 
thought and the word; and may not our friends 
who are spirits also see and hear our thoughts 
and words? 

Then believe that your friends who have risen 
from the body may be as near you at times as 
Christ is all the time, and that material barriers 
can no more keep them from you than closed 
doors kept Christ from the disciples. Do not 
your hearts burn within you as you commune 
with them, though they have vanished from your 
sight? Do they not say, “ Lo, I am with you; 
peace be unto you ”? 

“ Lo, ever near us, though unseen, 

The dear immortal spirits tread; 

For all the boundless universe 
Is life; there are no dead! ” 


22 


LIFE BEYOND DEATH 


It is well with all who are in heaven with 
God; it is well with thy child, thy companion, 
thy friend. The gift of God to them and you is 
eternal life. If they do not come to you in a 
material form, you will go to them in a spiritual 
form. Living there or here, all live in one two¬ 
fold world. As long as affection and memory 
and companionship endure, you and they will 
live and love, and God will watch over them and 
you till you are born by death into endless life 
with them. If there be no vision of this unseen 
world and its inhabitants given us, as to Jacob, 
Elisha, Paul, John, and as to Christ and many 
Christians, let us not ignore the facts thus 
revealed nor doubt that there is a genuine 
Christian and Biblical spiritism as well as a for¬ 
bidden demonism. The “ familiar spirits ” of 
the latter are not to be classed with the spirits 
of the former, the godly and good of all ages 
who are like an “ unseen cloud of witnesses ” 
around us — our helpers and guardians whom we 
are soon to join and to see and know as we are 
known. When standing by a grave or thinking 
of the lifeless form of a friend, say — “ He is not 
here; he is risen.” That friend may, at times, 
be as near to you as was the risen Jesus to Mary 
in the garden, or to the two disciples at Emmaus, 
though you “ know him not.” 

In the moment of transition from this world 


EARTH AND HEAVEN 


23 


to the other, and from death to life, the depart¬ 
ing spirit may be, like Paul, caught up into 
heaven, and be uncertain “ whether he is in the 
body or out of the body but he soon realizes 
that to be with Christ in the spiritual world and 
have a full vision of Him and of that world is 
far better than to be imprisoned in the body. 
Like a bird released from the cage, he now rises 
to worlds before unknown. He enters the 
innumerable company of angels and is a com¬ 
panion of the spirits of the just, being, like them, 
justified by a just God. 

The numerous testimonies to the visions 
granted to some while dying, the revelations 
made to them of what by mortals is unseen, the 
rapturous expressions as the veil over the 
spiritual world is lifted and the forms and faces 
appear of loved ones, “ not lost but gone be¬ 
fore,” is convincing evidence that the two worlds 
and their inhabitants are close together. The 
dying would not deceive us. 

If our eyes were opened as were the eyes of 
Elisha’s servant, we, too, might see about us 
angelic hosts and ministering spirits whom Christ 
said He could summon at a word. They live 
in both worlds, as do God and Christ, to receive 
those who go and to comfort those who stay till 
they also hear the welcome word, “ Come,” 
and join the immortals. Then all in both 


24 


LIFE BEYOND DEATH 


worlds can say what the Spirit says: “ Blessed 
are they who die in the Lord.” 

And what do those who have gone say to the 
friends who linger for a little while on earth? 
Just what Christ said to the disciple he loved, 
on the Isle of Patmos: “ Fear not; I am He 
that liveth and was dead, and behold I am alive 
forevermore.” 0 that “ forevermore! ” Surely 
it is gain for the Christian to die. The body 
rests in the natural world, for it is of the earth, 
earthy; but the spirit goes to God who gave 
being and made that being in His own image; 
goes to be with the Lord of all being in the spiri¬ 
tual world and to be “forever with the Lord ”; 
goes to the place prepared which is all of space; 
goes to that eternity which is the life-time of 
God. Death to the prepared soul is a joyful 
experience; for Christ will then say, “ Enter 
thou into the joy of thy Lord.” 

Oh, live the life of the righteous here on earth 
that you may die the death of the righteous 
and go into life eternal! “ Say unto the right¬ 
eous it shall be well with him.” I do say it; 
the Lord knoweth the way of the righteous here 
and there. 

If any object to the views presented and say 
that our departed friends might be unhappy if 
they knew what was transpiring on earth, and 
that their felicity might be disturbed or less- 


EARTH AND HEAVEN 


25 


ened by such knowledge, I reply: God will not 
permit such a result; they may be permitted to 
know only what He chooses should be known, 
and their occasional presence and intercourse 
with us may be so arranged as to contribute to 
their and our happiness. “ There’ll be no 
sorrow there they will be strong to endure all 
that they know of human sorrow. 

The frauds and impositions or half-truths of 
so-called Spiritualism are to be rejected; but 
Christian and Biblical spiritualism is to be 
accepted, for it is based (1) on such vital Bible 
truths as these: God is a Spirit; God is the 
Father of spirits; there is a spirit in man; the 
spirit returns to God; (2) on such Bible narra¬ 
tions as the appearance of Samuel to Saul, of 
Moses and Elijah to the disciples at the trans¬ 
figuration, of Christ’s appearances after His 
death; (3) on the revelations of the Book of 
Revelation and the experiences and testimonies 
of hundreds in all the centuries — on my experi¬ 
ences and on yours. Why do not Christians 
speak freely and often of these experiences? 
There is a sacred silence which gives consent to 
the truth. All objections would disappear if 
the truth were known. 

Some time, and perhaps soon, it will be known 
that telepathy is a sixth sense leading to the 
unlocking and discovery of other senses and that 


26 


LIFE BEYOND DEATH 


wireless telegraphy and telephony are only 
an introduction to intercommunication between 
the two worlds and their inhabitants. 

As an illustration of my meaning, let me 
introduce an incident from a modern book. A 
husband and father was missing and supposed 
to be dead. Christmas had come, and ten- 
year-old Jamie asked his sorrowing mother, 
“ Don’t you think, mother, that God will let 
papa come from heaven and spend Christmas 
with us? He might be here like the angels and 
we not see him.” “ I am afraid not,” the sad 
woman replied, “ I don’t see how he could go 
back to heaven and be happy if he knew all. 
We’ll do everything he would wish to have us 
and then, by and by, we shall see him again.” 
Just at that moment the missing man appeared, 
not dead, as supposed, but never so much alive. 
The joy of the reunion cannot be described. 
Our absent ones do not appear, but I think the 
boy was right in thinking that they do, by God’s 
permission, come to us in spirit when they can 
comfort and help us and not be themselves 
troubled or unhappy. 

They surely cannot be dead like the body, 
for Christ has said: “ He that believeth on me 
shall never die.” “ Because I live ye shall live 
also.” They glide into our senses and our 
sensations, and influence and help and some- 


EARTH AND HEAVEN 


27 


times control us. They may not speak or 
write to us, but they so impress themselves upon 
our minds that we sometimes feel that they are 
near as we feel that God is near. Spirit and the 
spiritual world will sometimes be as real to all 
as matter and the material world. The spirits 
of the departed will be as real and seem as really 
alive as the friends on earth who still dwell in 
material bodies. 

I ask you then to regard these material bodies 
as envelopes of souls. You take the letter out 
of its envelope, save the letter, and destroy the 
envelope. So at death the soul is taken out of 
the body and saved; but the useless form which 
enclosed it is allowed to perish — “ earth to 
earth.” 

Benjamin Franklin, after recovering from an 
almost fatal illness and realizing that he would 
soon vanish from earth, wrote this as an epitaph 
for his tomb: “ The body of Benjamin Franklin 
(like the cover of an old book, its contents torn 
out and stript of its lettering and gilding) lies 
here; but the work itself shall not be lost, 
for it will, as he believed, appear once more in a 
new and more beautiful edition, corrected and 
amended by the Author.” 

What Benjamin Franklin quaintly says in this 
epitaph is true of all who lay aside the worn-out 
body and appear in a spiritual form in the 


28 


LIFE BEYOND DEATH 


spiritual world. Like a watch whose case has 
been removed as comparatively valueless, the 
earthly body is discarded, but the inner and 
valuable part, the undying soul, is re-incased in 
a spiritual body and still lives, keeping time 
with the harmony of heaven. The exchange of 
cases is an infinite gain to a child of God, now 
without fault in His presence. 

We believe that Lazarus, and others who were 
raised from the dead, lived after death in em¬ 
bodied form; that Moses and Elijah and others 
lived after death in a spiritual form; that 
hundreds of thousands, the great company no 
man can number whom St. John saw, live with¬ 
out the material body; we believe Paul’s state¬ 
ment, “ There is a natural body and there is a 
spiritual body,” each as real as the other; 
surely, then, we can believe that when the 
natural and animal body dies, the spirit or real 
person, not unclothed, but clothed upon with 
the spiritual body, triumphs over death and 
lives in the spiritual world more “ lifeful,” more 
really alive, than when incarnate. 

This is the joyful message, the good tidings 
of great joy to all the people of God, which I 
bring you. Joy to the world, the Lord has come; 
let earth receive Him who hath brought life and 
immortality to light, and receive this message. 
He will soon come and receive to Himself those 


EARTH AND HEAVEN 


29 


who receive Him and he will not come alone; 
those we love will come with Him — yes, do 
come now in our hours of silent communion with 
our Lord and with our living, loving friends who 
are absent from the body, but present with 
the Lord and with us. 

As we who yet live in this world seek for God 
who is a Spirit and the Father of spirits, let us 
remember that He who lives in the other world 
and both worlds sees us. “ Thou God seest 
me ”; and let us so live here that we who are 
also spirits, may live, even here, as seeing the 
invisible God, the Father of our spirits, who said: 
“ Blessed are the pure in heart, for they see 
God.” “ Without my flesh shall I see God ” 1 is 
Job’s exclamation; when disembodied, therefore, 
we shall have a clearer and perfect vision of Him. 

Oliver Wendell Holmes said: “In whatever 
world I may find myself (at death), I hope I 
shall always love this world, so long my home. 
After walking the streets of pure gold in the 
New Jerusalem, I hope to revisit the well remem¬ 
bered streets, green fields and flowery meadows 
of earth; and I have whispered this word, this 
hope, to the Unseen Presence who is always with 
us.” Let us not only whisper it, but say it; 
speak of it to God in prayer and to our friends 
for their comfort. 


1 American Revised Version 


30 


LIFE BEYOND DEATH 


Let us look forward to being in both worlds 
by God’s permission, when our bodies are seen 
no more in this world. I expect when absent 
from the body to be present with my loved ones 
in both worlds, and to revisit the scenes and 
friends on earth as one of the messengers or 
“ ministering spirits sent forth to minister unto 
the heirs of salvation until then, I believe 
those gone before will minister unto me as God 
permits. 

The transition from one world to another — 
from death here to life there, — is thus described 
by the English poet, Thomas Hood, and these 
tender and pathetic and illuminating lines 
exactly describe the departure from earth of 
some dear to me: 

“ Farewell, Life! my senses swim, 

And this world is growing dim; 

Thronging shadows cloud the light, 

Like the advent of the night; 

Colder, colder, colder still, 

Upward steals a vapor chill.” 

“ Welcome, Life! the spirit strives — 

Strength returns and hope revives; 

Cloudy fears and shapes forlorn 
Fly like shadows at the morn: 

O’er that world there comes a bloom, 

Sunny light for sullen gloom.” 

Christ will then say to those prepared for 


EARTH AND HEAVEN 


31 


heaven: “ Come ye blessed of my Father/’ 
and add the sweetest words which were ever 
spoken and which none but He who made 
atonement for sin could speak: “ Thy sins are 
forgiven; come unto me and I will now give 
you rest ” — in heaven. Oh, the change as we 
pass from life here through death to life there! 
Oh, the wonder of it all! 

Men say, “ He is dead angels say, “ He is 
born to die no more.” What is this but Paul’s 
faith and ours? Death is lost in life. “ To 
depart and be with Christ is far better.” 

My conclusion, then, is that we and all our 
ancestors; we and all our descendants; we and 
all the millions of earth and the billions in 
eternity live in the same world, though in sepa¬ 
rate states of existence; that earth and heaven 
are such states and places — different apart¬ 
ments of our Father’s house and universe. The 
material and spiritual are as close together as 
body and soul. What we know not now of this 
truth, we shall know hereafter, and that here¬ 
after is near us all. When we inhabit eternity, 
we shall understand that death is birth, that the 
death of the body is the birth of the spirit into 
heaven. We shall literally be “ born again.” 
Yes, death is birth — from life to eternal Life. 

Our friends are fast exchanging, not worlds, 
but rooms in our Father’s house, and we shall 


32 


LIFE BEYOND DEATH 


soon follow. Sometime all Christians will go 
home and find loved ones there awaiting their 
coming. 

“ To thy saints while here below 
With new years new mercies come; 

But the happiest year they know 
Is the last — which leads them home.” 

May you and I say, when passing through the 
gate, with Christ, “ Father, I come to Thee ”; 
with Stephen, “ Lord Jesus, receive my Spirit 
and with Dwight L. Moody, “ Earth is receding, 
heaven is advancing.” May we all meet, with 
our beloved, in that “ homeland of the Soul.” 
We shall fall asleep and we shall awake to find 
that dying is only going from one world to an¬ 
other without leaving either. We shall then see 
that both worlds are really one and that their 
inhabitants are so near that friends in time can 
say to friends in eternity in the words of Tenny¬ 
son — 

u Be near us when we climb or fall 
And make allowance for us all.” 

And will not God do what we ask our friends to 
do — “ make allowance for us all ”? Yes, the 
Judge of all will do right. He will save all He 
can possibly save. “ Comfort ye one another 
with these words.” 


I 


PART II 

HADES AND HEAVEN 


t 




PART II 

HADES AND HEAVEN 

“ I bring you good tidings of great joy which shall 
be to all people” 

Hades (literally the “ unseen ”) is a general 
term for all of the unseen world. All the dead 
go to Hades, but only prepared souls go to that 
part of Hades called heaven. 

So far we have assumed that our readers were 
prepared for entrance into heaven, by repen¬ 
tance, faith in Christ and His atonement for sin, 
and by bringing forth the fruits meet for such 
repentance and faith in a Christian life. All 
such pass into heaven after death. God does 
not assign such souls to that part of Hades 
called hell or leave them there. 

But there are many not thus prepared. What 
becomes of them at death? Cannot an answer 
be given to this question which will harmonize 
differing views and be considered scriptural and 
reasonable? 

Even those who are prepared for heaven so 
differ in their doctrinal views and in preparation 
and character and conduct here that some may 


36 


LIFE BEYOND DEATH 


need further preparation in “ Paradise,” or in 
one of Paul’s three heavens, before reaching the 
“ Holy City ” and the perfection entitling them 
to this higher stage of existence. If this be 
true, is it not true that those who have had no 
preparation or instruction and are ignorant of 
Christ and the plan of salvation will have in¬ 
struction and a chance to hear the Gospel, re¬ 
pent, and be saved? Would not a just God — 
a God who is Love — provide such an op¬ 
portunity? 

I believe such an opportunity will be given in 
eternity and in the unseen world of “ Hades ” 
to all in heathen or Christian lands who did not 
have it here. To them the Gospel will be 
preached as Christ preached it to “ spirits in 
prison,” and so everyone, here or there, will 
accept or reject God’s terms of salvation. 
Those who accept will be admitted to “ Para¬ 
dise ” or one of the “ many mansions ” or 
apartments of heaven; those who reject or 
“ neglect the great salvation ” will go elsewhere. 
Where? Call it Sheol or Hades, Purgatory or 
Hell; it is not heaven. Christ will there con¬ 
tinue His blessed work of seeking to save the 
“ lost,” but the eternally sinning will be eternally 
self-banished from heaven. Little children, of 
whom is the Kingdom of Heaven, who have 
never sinned or who have erred innocently, are 


HADES AND HEAVEN 


37 


admitted to the heaven to which they belong. 
All old enough to be responsible for their choices 
and conduct are elected or rejected accord¬ 
ing as they have elected to accept or to 
reject the offer of salvation. God will make no 
mistake in His decision and we leave all who go 
from us to Him, giving all possible comfort and 
hope to sorrowing friends on earth. But they 
and we cannot change man’s free will and choice 
or God’s righteous judgments. 

Personally I believe there is something good, 
something god-like to which God can appeal in 
every one, and so I believe the worst might be 
saved if they are willing to do right, that is, 
to obey God and the Gospel; but Scripture, 
observation, and reason convince me that many 
will fail to do this and so will fail to reach 
heaven. Each on entering the spirit world will 
“ go to his own place.” Those who finally 
choose to reject salvation and so to lose heaven 
are “ lost ” in a “ Gehenna ” or “ hell,” as com¬ 
pared with heaven, but not a place of physical 
suffering; for there is no flesh, blood or nerve 
there thus to suffer. Only the spirit in a spiritual 
body goes there. 

There is no material and literal “ hell-fire ” 
there any more than there is literal fire in a 
fiery trial or a burning shame here. Do not 
misinterpret Scripture so as to make God a 


38 


LIFE BEYOND DEATH 


cruel monster instead of a loving Father. The 
fuel supplied by conscience, memory, and re¬ 
morse alone feeds that fire. “ There is a great 
gulf (of character) fixed ” between those outside 
and those inside heaven; there is intercom¬ 
munication and the possibility in some eternity 
of a change in condition, but character, choice, 
and destiny, set and fixed on earth is not easily 
altered in eternity. 

May there not, however, be grades both of 
felicity in heaven and misery in hell, as in our 
schools on earth, which may be expressed by 
good, better, best in the one, and bad, worse, 
worst in the other, with promotion or degrada¬ 
tion according to effort, to merit, or demerit? 
Certainly God will do what is right and just, 
and we can leave all who die, even the unpre¬ 
pared or unrepentant, with Him. He is the 
Judge, not we. He knows the heart and 
the life. 

If asked, Is there hope for those who in this 
life have definitely rejected Christ, chosen sin 
and lived in sin, knowing the consequences, or 
who have committed the one unpardonable sin 
of so grieving the Holy Spirit as to grieve Him 
away, I must answer that while “ prodigal sons ” 
and all who return to God at any time, or in 
eternity, are welcomed in heaven, those who will 
not in this life or the future life comply with the 


HADES AND HEAVEN 


39 


just and reasonable terms of salvation and who 
persist in their course till God’s Spirit no longer 
strives with them have had their probation and 
cannot expect a second. Their unbelief and 
conduct before death often compel us to believe 
that they will go away farther and farther from 
heaven until they finally reach the “ outer 
darkness.” In the opinion of many Biblical 
scholars and Christian people, there is no hope 
for such if they die without hope and faith. 
God knows their fate. 

Would you escape their fate? Repent, be¬ 
lieve, and live the gospel here and now. Strive 
not against the Spirit now striving with 
you; seek a seeking Savior before the Spirit 

ceases to strive. Only those unwilling and 

so unable to be saved in God’s way will 

be finally “ lost.” God elects all who elect 

salvation on His terms. Make your election 
sure. 

But while Christ warns his hearers against 
some very terrible possibilities in the future 
world if they are impenitent and unbelieving in 
this world, and we must do the same, yet to 
those anxious about the final destiny of loved 
ones in eternity or their own salvation, I would 
still preach the gospel of Love. Some one has 
said, “ There will be a knocker left outside 
heaven’s door for every heart-broken sinner 


40 


LIFE BEYOND DEATH 


asking admission.” Christ is able to save unto 
the uttermost all who come unto God by Him in 
time or eternity. Even those who do not thus 
come, those who do not escape the condemna¬ 
tion and who “ depart ” from heaven, and are 
guilty of the “ unpardonable sin,” will be treated 
mercifully by a merciful God whose mercy en- 
dureth forever. Existence outside heaven will 
be made “ tolerable,” and more so for some than 
others — as Christ declared. This may be con¬ 
sidered “ heresy ” by some, but it is the ortho¬ 
doxy of the heart. God is good even to the lost 
and to the wicked in hell. Though one is in 
hell, God is there . 1 “ The Lord is good to all 
and his tender mercies are over all His works ” 
— in heaven or hell. God is Love everywhere. 
Is not this view to be preferred to the “ annihila¬ 
tion of the wicked ” in which some find relief? 
and to the “ eternal punishment ” theories 
arising from a too literal interpretation of 
the vivid but figurative language of Scrip¬ 
ture? 

I believe that embodied souls are now, while 
on earth, in hell or heaven; for as eternity in¬ 
cludes time, so do heaven and hell include those 
who choose them and belong to them on earth. 
Leave the earthly hell here; enter the Kingdom 
of Heaven here, and you will be in it there. 


1 See Psalm 139. 


HADES AND HEAVEN 


41 


“ Seek first the kingdom of God and His right¬ 
eousness,” and then all God’s best things (which 
it is best for you to have) will be yours in both 
worlds. 

0 dwellers on earth and in time, enter now the 
Kingdom of Heaven and dwell here in eternity 
and heaven! Be saved here and you will be 
saved hereafter. Make room for heavenly 
influences and inspirations in your souls and so 
have a heaven on earth. Subdue by prayer and 
care all hellish impulses. “ Myself am heaven ” 
is as true of a regenerated soul as Milton’s 
phrase “ Myself am hell ” is true of a depraved 
soul. Heaven and hell, holy angels and de¬ 
mons, are around us and within us now, according 
to our choice of environment and our character. 
God and Satan are continually seeking to win 
us. If you would be saved in heaven, yield to 
the one, resist the other. Be heavenly-minded 
on earth and soon heaven and ail its glory and 
felicity will be yours. “ If the outside of heaven 
is so beautiful,” said a little child, looking at the 
sky, “ what must the inside be! ” And if the 
experiences of a trusting and obedient Christian 
be so comforting, what must be the full vision 
and revelation of that heaven which is the 
Christian’s eternal home? “ Oh, what will it 
be to be there! ” 

We have thus frankly, and as fully as space 


42 


LIFE BEYOND DEATH 


permits, presented the subject of the unity of 
the two worlds. God’s universe is one, as the 
word universe implies; and its worlds and parts 
are one. There is now intercommunication 
between them and their inhabitants, and will 
be more in the near future. There is no more 
mystery in this than in the unity of the two 
hemispheres of one earth and the exchange of 
messages by “ wireless.” The next great dis¬ 
covery may be a “ spiritual wireless,” rendering 
messages between the seen and unseen worlds 
common and easy. As we now send messages 
to God by prayer and receive answers, so soon 
may we and our loved ones in eternity send and 
receive messages. We may in time think 
thoughts which will instantly reach friends in the 
other world and be answered. 

I have endeavored to show that time and 
eternity — heaven and hades and earth — are 
one in God’s one spiritual world. Does not 
this thought make it easier to pass from one 
world to the other? The body dies but you 
do not die. If you dread the event called 
death, commit the keeping of your soul to Him 
who hath abolished death and brought life 
and immortality to light, and then live as 
He commands. 0 ye of little faith, cherish 
that faith! The soul is more precious to 
Him than a world. He will save you if you 


HADES AND HEAVEN 43 

cry “ Lord, save or I perish.” When death 
approaches — 

" Be like the bird that, halting in its flight 
Awhile on boughs too slight, 

Feels them give way beneath, yet sings, 

Knowing that it hath wings.” 

Have this faith and then, in the final moment of 
the union of soul and body, you will fly out — on 
— up — and yet live in God’s world somewhere, 
not nowhere but now here and everywhere, 
wherever He permits. 

You, who read, have your probation here. 
Choose this day, in this life, whom you will 
serve, whose company here and hereafter you 
prefer and with whom you will dwell. If you 
believe Christ and Scripture, you must believe 
that those who choose evil and evil companions 
will dwell with these and be finally separated 
from those who choose God and the good, right 
and righteousness. But the latter, on account 
of this choice, do finally come, as indeed they do 
more and more in this life, “ unto Mount Zion 
and unto the city of the Living God, the heavenly 
Jerusalem, and to an innumerable company 
of angels and to the spirits of the just made 
perfect, and to Jesus,” who saves all such from 
their sins, faults, and mistakes, and presents 
them without fault before God with exceeding 

joy- 


44 


LIFE BEYOND DEATH 


Shall the Judge at the general Resurrection, or 
assembly of risen souls for final judgment, say: 
^Come ye blessed of my Father/’ or “ Depart ”? 
Hades or heaven! Which? Choose ye! 


PART III 


CONCLUSION 






PART III 
CONCLUSION 

Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter . 

At one period in the author’s life, he had 
doubts as to the reality of the other world and 
continued existence after death; also as to the 
existence of a personal God, and other funda¬ 
mental truths of religion and Christianity. 
Especially did the doctrine of the omnipresence 
of God as a Spirit seem incredible and irrational. 
He was led out of this latter doubt, and gradually 
out of the other doubts, by considering the 
omnipresence of the invisible air in every part of 
the world and in every particle of matter — the 
very air which, when inbreathed, gives and sus¬ 
tains all physical life. If I believe that, I said, 
I can also believe there is a God, an unseen 
Spirit, who is everywhere and in everything, who 
hath breathed into me my spirit, in whom I live 
and have being and always will — a Spirit who, 
whether embodied as Christ or disembodied as 
the Holy Spirit, is as really the “ Father of 
spirits ” as earthly fathers are of bodies. Yes, 
God is a Spirit from whom I, a spirit, came, and 


48 


LIFE BEYOND DEATH 


unto whom I shall return to be judged for the 
deeds done in the body and assigned my place 
in eternity. Gradually all doubt melted away 
and other doctrines were made clear and be¬ 
lievable. 

The other world now became real and almost 
visible; spirits there became companionable, 
and the whole universe of God became unified 
and ever-present to my thought. God and the 
love and will of God were seen to be omni¬ 
present, and the prayer, “ Thy will be done,” 
brought the human spirit into harmony with 
God and became the solution to many prob¬ 
lems, the key to life’s mysteries. 

One product of this experience is this little 
book, which I pray may impart faith in the 
unseen where it is wanting, restore it where it is 
lost or impaired, and confirm it where it now 
exists. The most helpful verse in Scripture in 
unlocking doors to profound truths and admitting 
to heavenly experiences has been this: “ I seek 
not my own will but the will of the Father who 
sent me.” This declaration of Christ, with His 
submission of His own will to the Father’s in 
that memorable prayer of prayers, “ Not my 
will but thine be done ” (a prayer which is 
always answered in the final outcome of events), 
so transforms life that heaven begins below. 

Let us be like Christ in seeking to know and 


CONCLUSION 


49 


to do and to suffer God’s will. Then all our 
experiences, including our trials and sorrows, 
our Gethsemanes and Calvaries, and even our 
sins, will be a part of the “ all things ” ever work¬ 
ing together for good. Led by the Spirit, we 
shall be led aright. 1 

The author would offer as his prayer, asking 
all his readers, even the doubters, to join with 
him in it, these immortal words of George Eliot: 
“ Oh, may I join the choir invisible of those im¬ 
mortal dead who live again in minds made 
better by their presence. May I reach that 
purest heaven, be to other souls the cup of 
strength in some great agony; be the sweet 
presence of God diffused, whose music is the 
gladness of the world.” 

When we join this “ choir invisible,” may it be 
said of us, “ Blessed are the dead who die in 
the Lord; yea, saith the Spirit, they rest from 
their labors and their works do follow them ” — 
follow them on earth and follow them into 
eternity. 

To be sure of joining the “ choir invisible ” 
join the choir visible here on earth, composed of 
those who live a heavenly life and choose the 
good part which shall never be taken from them. 
Of such I say, and the Spirit says, not “ Blessed 
are the dead,” but Blessed are the living who live 


* Romans 8 : 14 


50 


LIFE BEYOND DEATH 


in the Lord, whose goodness and good works 
make a heaven on earth, who by the comfort of 
these truths are delivered from that fear of 
death which subjects so many all their lives to 
bondage. 































































